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And I feel a little better than I did before

In an effort to keep from going insane during the 12 Days of Being-at-home-with-my-girls, I have endeavored to find all sorts of things to keep the girls occupied and engaged and away from each others throats so that everyone will remain well away from my last nerve. To that end, my Mom sent home a huge bag of heavy stuff – mumbling something about fun with the girls and didn’t I used to like these things – which turned out to be 5 old Make-it Bake-it sun catchers and bags and bags of extra colors of plastic beads. These had belonged to a family friend whose own grandchildren had outgrown them. Lucky me. It was fun with the girls and do I still like these things.

The 5 that we had in the bag were from the Disney Small World Series. Aurelia chose the French Can-Can Girl and the China Boy – seriously those were the names. Saebra chose the African Native and the Hula Girl. uh-huh. I’m not telling you what I did, you’ll find out next week, but here’s a pic – sorta.

It took 2 hours with spoons and tooth picks and tweezers to fill these things in and I ended up helping Seabra with hers, she chose all the colors though. Then we pop them into a 375 degree oven and wait for the plastic beads to melt and the gentle scent of hot plastic to waft through the house.

See, the whole “smell of the eighties thing” from yesterday, this was what I was talking about.

The girls are thrilled with how they all came out and can’t wait to hang them up/gift them away….uh, they’re a little undecided at the moment.

After the suncatchers were done I was feeling all nostalgic, food wise, but we are at Defcon 4 in the kitchen – cabinets almost bare! With the holidays and all we didn’t do a big shopping trip last week and we’ve eaten most of the leftovers and well it doesn’t bode well for baking until I realized I had everything I needed for 7 layer bars! Psyche!!

You will need:

1 package of graham crackers crushed to bits – it is so theraputic!

1 stick of butter

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup coconut

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk – I’m not sure what to do with the other half of the can but I don’t want a double batch of this in the house!!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place your 9×13 pan in the oven with the stick of butter in it. When the stick has melted – and may be bubbly around the edges – take it out of the oven and pour your cruched crackers on top. Smooth this all out to the same thickness with the back of a spoon and try not to burn yourself – that thing was just in the oven for cryin out loud!

Pour on your chocolate chips, pecans, white chocolate chips and coconut – you could add in butterscotch chips, these were my Nanny’s favorite – blech to me, peanut better chips, walnuts, whatever add as many layers as you want! Once you are all layered up drizzle on the sweetened condensed milk. Pop it into the oven for 20 – 25 minuted or until the milk and coconut have turned a dark glossy brown. Take it out and let it cool!! You can not unpan these goodies until the butter mixed with the crackers has had a chance to set. It will still taste just as good but you’ll have to eat it with a spoon.